I do not own X-men evolution.
Chapter 4
It was still cool outside. It was only the end of may before lunch. Rogue was across the lawn ceremoniously beating the hell out of a bag she had hung from one of the trees, with Kurt's help. Wanda looked around. The smell of Gambit's barbeque was in the air, and she placed the mat on the patio, and sat, Indian style. Every once in a while she would look up to see Gambit glance at Rogue and then noticeably wince, as if he thought she was thinking of him as she beat the bag. They had been there for three days and surprisingly there had been no inconveniences. Gambit and Pyro's presence meant everyone had more spending money, and surprisingly the only two that were causing trouble were Pietro and Tabitha, at least that was well meaning trouble. She took a deep breath. Hopefully people would know not to disturb her. She had been trying for months to perfect this particular meditation technique that Agatha had shown her once. It was frustrating because she had never come close. She concentrated until she felt the ground rumble beneath her.
"LANCE!" She heard Rogue yell. She looked over to see that Rogue had lost her footing and landed in the dirt.
"Sorry," He said quickly sticking his head out the kitchen window. "Tabby put a bomb in my back pocket."
"I don't know whether to be mad or laugh." Wanda grumbled under her breath, as she laid back against the mat, giving up at her task. She felt someone plop down beside her, and take her water.
"Why didn't ya hex him?" Wanda looked up and saw Rogue.
"Trying to be nice, or at least pleasant. Call it an experiment, maybe the idiots will leave me alone." She saw Rogue look at her strangely, but she didn't press the matter. "The Cajun seems to be somewhat of a good cook." Rogue scoffed.
"What is he doing?" Rogue said pointing towards John. He was sitting in a lawn chair about 10 feet away. Wanda had to admit that he made her nervous for some reason. He seemed nice, a tad bit goofy, but mostly he had the smart, sarcastic sense of humor, not unlike Rogue's. Wanda had to admit it was a far step away from the fart jokes that reigned supreme in the brotherhood house. He made her nervous because... well because he was soothing, if that was a word you could use to describe a person, and the other night on the porch he kept everyone in stitches. Wanda didn't like to feel at ease because that is when bad stuff happened. He was just sitting there scribbling furiously. He looked up, when he noticed the girls staring at him, and immediately back down.
"I have no fucking idea what he is doing." Wanda replied looking at Rogue. Wanda cleared her throat loudly before continuing in a mocking tone. "Dear Diary, last night Remy looked at me. He is soooooooo dreamy, and, like, I think he may of touched my butt." Both guys turned and faced her. John in shock, while Remy just glared. Rogue was just sitting there laughing.
"Oh my god! Wanda Maximoff just told a joke." Lance said coming outside with Kitty and Kurt. Wanda snapped back up into a sitting position, getting a slight bit angry.
"What's wrong, Lance? Jealous? Are ya in love with moron one or moron two?" Lance's eyes narrowed. Kurt fell on the ground laughing. "That is my death glare. I'd appreciate it if you wiped it off your face. I have no idea why you have to be so moody." Lance continued to glare.
"Lance is not gay." Kitty said, defending him.
"Kit, she was just jokin'. John and Remy even know that. They went back to what they were doing." Rogue said quickly, after she had gotten her laughter under control. She decided to diffuse the situation. To Rogue it seemed that Lance and Wanda did not get along ever. Kitty rolled her eyes and sat down with the girls.
"I know, like, I was wondering if you wanted to go to Hershey, Pennsylvania tomorrow? Kurt and I thought it would be great to go see where chocolate started."
"Hershey isn't where chocolate started." Wanda stated. It wasn't meant to come out how it sounded, but it came out sounding 'Kitty is an idiot'.
"I know that." Kitty replied somewhat rudely.
"Forget it." Wanda said standing up. "Rogue, will you bring my mat in when you come in?" Rogue nodded. Wanda stomped in the house, pushing past her brother.
"Wow she is moody. So what do ya say?"
"A city that supposedly smells like chocolate. Ah'm there. Who else is going to make sure Kurt doesn't pull an Augustus Gloop." She answered.
"Hey! That little chubby preteen has nothing on the fuzzy dude." Kurt was the one that could set things straight. No matter what mood he could disarm a person completely.
"Hey Rogue."
"Yeah, Pietro."
"We are out of food for like barbeque picnic type stuff."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"You said to tell you because you don't trust anyone else to go shopping."
"Actually, Remy needs a few things for his sauce, chere." Rogue's eyes narrowed.
'Yeah right, sauce my ass. He is making hamburgers. You don't need sauce for hamburgers.' Rogue though to herself. "Really swamp rat, sauce for hamburgers?"
"Special Cajun hamburgers." He replied suavely. 'Now I have to make up saucy hamburgers.'
"What do ya need me to pick up?"
"Remy should go wid ya." Rogue mentally screamed. She couldn't seem to get away from him. All he did was bother her.
"Fahne." She said in a slight growl. Remy smiled, and Rogue looked away from him. What was it about him that could piss her off and then completely disarm her? He had even gotten Wanda out of a fit of rage the other morning when Lance and Pietro were bothering her. They kept calling her cuddlebumps.
"Hey, John-boy, why don't ya finish up de burgers." Remy called over his shoulder.
"Why? So you can play the 'please-love-me-Rogue' game." Remy glared at him. John closed his notebook and walked into the house. Rogue passed him Wanda's mat on the way inside the house.
"He just, like, turned down a chance to play with fire." Kitty said giggling.
"You are so cute." Lance said. Kitty giggled again. Rogue groaned and made a very childish gagging noise pointing down her throat.
"Na, he just wantin' to play wid a different type of fire."
"So Ah guess that means, ya tell me what ya want at the store." Rogue said walking into the house .
"Pietro, burgers now." Remy said tossing him the spatula. Pietro looked at the spatula for a second, and after Remy had disappeared into the house. He threw it behind him.
"Yeah, right."
"Ah swear, Swamp Rat. Just get what you need and meet me at check out." Rogue said as she pushed the cart towards the cereal aisle. It wasn't long before she felt Remy behind her. He was holding some various sauces and spices, nothing that would go well together, at least in her mind. He smiled at her sweetly and dropped the items in the shopping cart. She glared at him, but pushed the cart further on stopping every so often to drop something in the cart.
"Ya like chocolate cake?" She asked quickly, dropping the mix in the cart not waiting for a response
"Oui, but John is allergic." He said reaching to put some beer in the cart.
"That is kinda sad. No, no more booze. Ah can't handle another night of Tabby drunk." She said removing it and putting it back in his arms. He rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses.
"She'll just go out to Mel's and make the speed bump drive her home. We're gonna have to deal wit her either way." He dropped the beer back into the cart.
"Ah honestly don't know why he deals with her.'
"Are ya dat blind?" Rogue stopped walking and glared at him.
"Pietro and Tabitha is the scariest thing Ah have heard in a long time." She shuddered. He shook his head. "The two of them are just too much to handle."
"At least he won't be botherin' us den. De boy can be awfully annoyin'."
"He isn't the only one." She said sarcastically, as she pushed the cart down the next aisle, throwing a couple of loaves of bread in the cart. "Ah'm done. Ya ready ta leave?"
"Remy don't think de femme likes him much." She whipped around.
"You're right. Ya tried ta blow mah hand off. Ah don't trust ya. So continue ta flirt or follow me around, Ah don't care because at most Ah can see us maybe being friends." She spun back around and pushed the cart to the check out line. She couldn't understand it. He annoyed her, and she showed no interest. So why was he so hell-bent on making a fool of himself? Yet, he did seem to only want to be nice to her. He just confused her, and that was one thing she hated. At least she hated to feel more confused than she usually was.
"Your total is thirty-eight dollars and ninety-six cents." Rogue dug through her pockets and pulled out two crumpled twenties out. She straightened the bills out, feeling the cashier's eyes watching her every move. She glanced over towards Remy to see his sunglasses on the tip of his nose while flipping through a random tabloid. The cashier took the money, and hit a few buttons on the register.
"Chere, dis woman had a two thousand pound baby." Rogue turned towards him.
"Ya don't honestly believe that, do ya?" He lifted his eyes to meet hers.
"Non." Rogue rolled her eyes and turned around in time to see the cashier drop the change. Rogue followed the girl's gaze to Remy.
"What the hell?" Rogue went to take her change and leave before anything got out of hand. The girl snatched her hand back. She then took the forty dollars out of the cash register and handed them back. "We don't sell to muties."
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Rogue sighed out. "I have already paid so why don't you just let us leave."
"I'm not keeping you from leaving, but you're money is no good in here." Rogue glared at her, and she felt Remy tug at her hand.
"C'mon, chere. We'll just go somewhere else." Rogue shot the cashier a dirty glare that the girl shot right back.
"Good luck finding a place in Springfield that will sell to you." The cashier yelled angrily.
Wanda flopped on the couch and glanced over at the Australian, who at the moment was either spaced out or deep in thought. Wanda chuckled and shook her head. Of course he was spaced out. Her laugh had brought him out of his trance. He looked at her and then back down at his notebook. Wanda turned towards him and pulled a leg under herself.
"What do you keep writing?" He closed the notebook and looked at her as if she were insane. This wasn't very Wanda behavior. That is usually why people waited for her to approach them, because no one knew what mood she was in. She smiled. "What?" He looked at her for a few more seconds.
"Nothing."
"That isn't nothing."
"What is with you?"
"I'm trying to be nice. Does anyone ever think that I get tired of people ducking me all the time? As long as I can remember people have done that, and I don't know why."
"You aren't the most pleasant of people. You being nice is kinda frightening." She leaned back and sighed.
"I know. I should just stay in bitch mode... I feel more comfortable like that." She reached for the remote and flipped through the channels nonchalantly. John went on scribbling. After a few moments she looked back over at him.
"What the fuck you writing now?" He smirked. That was very Wanda.
"It's nothing just some thoughts." She looked at him with a look of genuine amusement.
"So it is a diary?"
"No. Sometimes I just write things down." He watched her as the amused look turned to one of interest.
"Like what?"
"Just different things, idea for things." He couldn't tell her that he was writing about, because he was writing about what he was thinking about and that was her.
"You want to write books then?" She said reaching for the notebook.
"I guess." He said putting it out of her reach. She reached further across him before giving up.
"You know, that's kinda hot." He felt his eyes bulge, and he watched her return to her previous sitting position.
"What?"
"I'm not joking. Some girls love that type of stuff, but it is going to depend on what you write. If you write romance, you are going to get girls with marriage proposals who think you are just as perfect as the leading man. If you write horror, then most likely you can get away from the romance addict and more towards the random sex. If you write gay porn..."
"I get it." He said, cutting her off. He watched her trace the design of the couch with her finger.
"Then add your accent on top of that. Yeah, chic magnet potential." He turned his body to face her. "So, what exactly are you writing?"
"Just notes not anything really decipherable yet." She nodded.
"I can't believe you didn't prod further about the chic magnet thing, most guys would have." She looked down and away from him. It drove him crazy. Wanda had layers, and he liked finding them, but he liked finding the layers in anybody. It helped with character development, but even he had to admit, Wanda was something else.
"I debated it, luv." She looked back at him with confusion. The phone rang. Wanda got up from the couch and headed toward the kitchen.
"Hello." She turned and looked at John through the doorway, who had returned to his writing. Had she just been flirting with him? God, what an idiot. "I'm sorry what?" Wanda put the phone on the counter and walked back out to the living room and out the sliding door to the patio. "Kurt, Amanda's on the phone." She went to turn back in the house and sniffed. "What happened to the burgers?"
"Pietro decided not to watch them." Lance said quickly then returned his attention back to Kitty.
"So no one else thought it would be a good idea to take over?" She said, getting angry.
"He threw the spatula." She groaned and walked into the house.
"It's official: I'm surrounded by idiots." She said walking past John. She heard a door slam as she entered the kitchen. Tabby was sitting at the table, obviously having found something to eat.
"Ah am completely pissed." Rogue said bursting in the room, anger sketched all over her face.
"What happened?" Tabby asked.
"Ah had to go ta two stores because the first one, don't sell to no muties." She said slamming the bags on the table.
"Dat's what took so long."
"Oh and somethin' tells me that we had bad luck pickin' this place. The cashier wished me good luck on findin' a place that sold to muties."
"Pietro ruined your burgers." Tabby said quickly.
"Silver kid's gonna get it." Remy said, looking at Wanda.
"I'm not stopping you." She said unpacking some of the bags. "I am starving. You came back from shopping alive. I take it he didn't bother you too bad." Rogue threw to loaves of bread on the counter. "Rogue, don't let them get to you. You don't know what she meant by that. Did you really expect to get away from the hatred? I hate to tell you, it's everywhere and it isn't going away. At least not any time soon." Rogue turned around and glared.
"Ah guess it wasn't that bad, the bitch just saw Remy's eye's and threw a fit."
"I have good news." Tabby said.
"What?"
"Victoria's Secrets catalog came in today. We can torture the guys." Wanda sat up on the counter.
"No thanks, after telling John he had chic magnet potential. I don't think I should."
"Ya told him he was a chic magnet." Rogue laughed out loud.
"I said POTENTIAL. Don't look at me like that." Wanda said to Rogue. Wanda shook her head. "We were talking today and I found out what he was writing earlier, and... WHAT?" She yelled when she noticed both girls staring at her. "I seriously think you two need to get your minds out of the damn gutter." She finished sliding off of the counter. She crossed her arms. Tabby's mouth opened. "Don't." She shrugged instead. Wanda opened up the freezer. "Rogue you bought oysters?"
"Ah like em."
"Did you know that they're an aphrodisiac?" Tabby said.
"And ya would know this because?"
"Common knowledge. Maybe we should feed them to the chic magnet."
"Sure as long as you and my brother don't get them." Tabby's mouth dropped.
"I want nothing to do with your brother." Wanda jumped at the sound of Rogue laughing.
The four girls sat on the floor watching a movie and eating new hamburgers (courtesy of Remy). Tabby flipped through a magazine, while the guys sat on various furniture. Upon first entrance the girls had given th guys dirty looks for not being gentlemen, but what can a person do. So they just stretched out on the floor.
"I own that." Tabitha said proudly pointing at one of the items in the catalog. Rogue glanced over.
"Really...? That's kinda..." Tabitha smiled proudly.
"What are they looking at?" Lance asked, leaning over towards Kurt. He shrugged.
"I have no idea." Rogue took the magazine and flipped through a few pages.
"Ah lahk that."
"That is sooo tame." Tabitha said in an almost disgusted voice. "I expected better from you Rogue."
"What? That is very tasteful."
"Whatever floats your boat. I can't help it if I like my lingerie to have spark." Tabby announced loudly, catching a look from everyone. "Oh come on everyone was wondering. So yes, I wear wild panties, and bras to match."
"I can't believe you just, like, announced that." Kitty said putting a hand to her forehead. Rogue kept flipping through.
"Wanda, this is totally you. I mean the style." Wanda grabbed the magazine and folded it back.
"Do ya think they are doing dis on purpose?" Remy asked John. He turned to see John's eyes no longer on the movie but on the girls, well no one was paying attention to the movie since Tabby's little announcement.
"I can totally get into that, but only in red or black. Bubble gum pink isn't exactly my color. Here Kitty." Kitty's eyes got huge. As did John's.
"They are doing it on purpose." John said responding to Remy's question.
"I soooooo don't have the boobs for that. I'm a stick." Kitty whispered harshly. Lance spit out his drink. "And besides that is way too vixenish for my tastes." Kitty continued.
"The key to picking out good underwear is finding the model that looks the most like your body type they working accordingly." Tabby said in a matter of fact voice. "That way you have some idea what it looks like on you."
"Tabby if you hadn't noticed. No body looks lahk that." Rogue said quickly. Tabby's eyes got huge.
"I know, let's go to the mall and just try it on then."
"No! Ah ain't going to the mall to try on clothes, Ah can't wear."
"It was just an idea. Also now I know lots about you guys, by the kind of underwear you like." Wanda groaned and flipped through the pages skimming each one.
"Oh great she is going to try to Psycho-analyze us by our underwear. Hey, I own this exact garter belt, but I have never had to use it. Thigh highs, too, still in the package. I thought I should have them, ya know, just in case." Rogue chuckled and shook her head.
"Did you bring them with you?"
"Of course, like I would leave any of my clothing in the house with Toad." Wanda felt a gush of air go by when Pietro stopped by Tabitha and whispered something in her ear. She nudged Rogue and pointed to the sight.
"Pietro, you are such a little shit!" She yelled at him, blowing into her hand.
"Tabby don't!" Rogue yelled in time to hear an explosion. Tabby came back in the room brushing her hands on her jeans. "What on earth did he say to you?"
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
AN: Sorry it took so long but I had some writers block. And even though some of this chapter sucks... it will set the tone and hopefully get me going. Now, I don't know if there is an actual Springfield, Pennsylvania, but I am sure there is bound to be one. This little town I am creating is in no means modeled after any particular place, believe me in future chapters you will see why I say this.